Someone Has To Talk To Paula Deen About Her Son’s Brownface

Earlier today, noted racial sensitivity expert Paula Deen celebrated something called #TransformationTuesday by tweeting a photo (that has since been deleted) that is so ridiculous that I don’t think there’s any real use in trying to explain it. It is a picture of her son, Bobby Deen, in brown face, as the two pose as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo from “I Love Lucy.” It is 2015. Brown face is not okay. [I’m also inclined to point out that Cuban actor Desi Arnaz was pretty fair-skinned, so this is extra, extra, extra unnecessary. – Amelia] Paula Deen doesn’t exactly have a history of handling race well. At all. Like, actually, she’s pretty shitty at it.

There was the time she compared being publicly shamed for her racist words to flack NFL player Michael Sam received after coming coming out as gay. There was the time she paid her Black employees in alcohol instead of money. There was the time she admitted that she hired Black cater waiters to dress as pre-Civil War slaves at a colonial-themed wedding. There are most likely countless other examples of Deen’s racism, both private and public, that we don’t know about. The point stands: Paula Deen isn’t sorry. She’s racist. [h/t Gawker]